


Chained to The Sky (There's No Way Out of This Life)

by broception



Category: Inception (2010), Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:26:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broception/pseuds/broception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur might never get the chance to tell Eames how he really feels, because now their time is running out. Never Let Me Go/Inception crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chained to The Sky (There's No Way Out of This Life)

**Present**

Arthur is dying. This is a known fact, something that he has chosen to accept before it had even begun; he has known that he is going to die. He has known that he is going to die this soon, not ever getting the chance at a normal life, for it hadn’t been granted to him. He has known since he was a small tyke, barely able to get around without a blanket strapped to his arm.

He didn’t expect for it to be this hard. Arthur is used to it; he is used to the multiple runs to the hospital for the plans of his surgery. He is used to meeting with the same doctor every week -- Dr. Samuel Ross -- and he is used to getting poked and probed with needles, sticks, and practically everything under the sun.

He hadn’t expected this sense of... loneliness that had roused when he had left The Villages, leaving behind everything that had shaped him when he was young. He expected happiness to know that he was free for a few more years, that he didn’t have to fall into this self destructive pattern that his classmates would fall into so much sooner than him.

He hadn’t expected to never really bond with people anymore. Who would want to bond with the man that wouldn’t live past the age of thirty? Arthur hadn’t chosen his fate, he had been handed it on a rusted platter, and he's the one who has to live with it.

He's accepted the fact that he is different from common folk, that he isn’t normal, that he isn’t allowed to be normal, a long, long time ago. He's accepted it early on, when he was smaller, living in a house of other kids who knew their inevitable fate as well. He wasn't bitter then, and he isn't bitter now. He isn’t believing the false lies and fairy-tales that his caregivers had planted into their heads.

It was a game to him back them, a game that he refused to lose, but a game that, in the end, he wouldn’t win.

Back then, it seemed so simple. It seemed so easy.

Arthur was naive; he believed that it would stay simple, easy, even.

But it didn't.

This is his life, and as much as it is completely and totally disastrous, it's his and he's going to make the best of it until he's no longer there to live it.

 

*

1 Week Earlier

“Your first donation surgery will happen next week,” Dr. Samuel Ross told Arthur, and he would’ve thought that he was a little sympathetic for him if it hadn’t been the look that he had basically gave everyone. The look lost it’s meaning after he’d seen it used so many times.

Arthur nodded. “What’s going?”

The doctor sighed, checking over Arthur’s blood pressure, sliding his sleeve up so he could put the band on his upper arm. “Normally I wouldn’t tell you because it’s not my place, being as I’m not the surgeon, but you’re one of the better patients I’ve come across.” The doctor paused to write down the number on Arthur’s charts before offering a sad, apologetic smile, like it was his fault that he had been thrusted down this path.

“You’ll be giving out one of your kidneys.”

Arthur gulped. Kidneys. While he would be able to live with only one -- though there were almost always complications of some sort -- he was scared. He was scared and he felt like a fucking five year old for it, but this was his life, and it was scary as much as it was heartbreaking.

Arthur often didn’t let himself feel sorry for himself, because that just led down a path of self-destruction and angst, but he was having a panic attack inside his head and he didn’t care enough to tie himself together.

“That’s not the worst, I suppose.” He said finally, not able to look the doctor in the eye, and he knew Dr. Ross didn’t exactly blame him.

“You’re the best carer we have, Arthur, and I know you’ll make that much better of a donor as well.”

The words were meant to be reassuring, telling Arthur that he was good enough no matter what, but he still felt worthless. He didn’t think about it too much, because thinking too much was almost bad as barely thinking at all, and Arthur was never a fan of either.

So instead of giving into the closing feeling in his chest, the feeling that makes him want to crawl into the nearest corner and just cry, cry, cry until he has no tears left, he offered a tight, sad smile at Dr. Ross -- because it surely wasn’t the man’s fault and he had never been one too lash out on people that didn’t deserve it -- and waved a dismissive hand.

“I’m replaceable.” He whispered, and he shrugged himself off of the table and out of the room. The doctor didn’t run after him. The doctor didn’t tell him that he’s not replaceable, because he isn’t. Sure, he’s Arthur, and he’s different from anyone else but he’s a donor, he’s a carer, and when Arthur finally dies, someone else will take his place.

It’s a never ending cycle that used to depress Arthur, but he just doesn’t find the energy to particularly care anymore.

 

*

 

Ariadne smiles at Arthur, and Arthur feels his heart take fire like it never has before. He feels the closest to happy he’s been in the last couple of months. He never thought he’d see that smile again, that smile that instantly brightened his mood, brightened anyone’s mood.

“You look better,” he whispers, because it’s true.

Ariadne had been his friend since he could remember having friends, and she was dear to his heart -- though he never let himself admit that. She was like him: replaceable, a donor, and she was close to the end of her string.

Arthur wasn’t sure why she was still holding on, but he admired her strength and wasn’t going to question her; because though he was curious, it wasn’t his business and he hadn’t wanted to overstep boundaries.

Though, he’s almost positive it has something to do with Yusuf.

She smiles again, and shrugs her shoulders. “I wish I could say the same about you.” She says coolly. Her slender, cold fingers reached for his hand and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from shuddering. “When’s the last time you slept?”

He shrugs. “Who really gets any sleep these days?”

She keeps quiet because it’s true and changes the subject. “I heard your first surgery’s coming up.”

He nods. “Next week.”

She smiles that famous Ariadne-feels-sorry-for-you smile, but it doesn’t feel pitiful so Arthur feels his lips tugging a small smile back. “You’ll do fine.”

“You never know, you know?”

“You’re the strongest person I know.” Arthur knows that means more than just what’s on the surface, but she doesn’t push, luckily. Arthur hadn’t let himself think about what had happened when he was younger -- or rather, didn’t admit to himself when he was --, wanting it to fade into the past.

“I think you’re giving me too much credit, just look at you.” He says, and she falls quiet because what is there really to say to that? Instead, he clears his throat, letting his fingers play with the sheets that are on her bed. “How’s Yusuf?”

Her expression darkens a little, lips pursing slightly, but she’s not completely closed off so Arthur takes that as a good sign. “He’s taking it a lot rougher than I am.”

He lets his bottom lip catch between his teeth as he shifts his gaze to the painting on her wall, suddenly finding it completely interesting. “Have you seen him?”

She shakes her head. “No, but the doctors talk. A lot louder than they mean too, I suppose.”

He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “He’s a fighter, you know.”

She looks at him with an expression that he can’t decipher, before her face stretches into a fake smile, a beautiful disaster in itself. “When we are what we are, Arthur, it’s impossible not to be.”

 

*

 

Arthur’s childhood wasn’t something to gloat about. It wasn’t some picture perfect place where everything was happy and nice, where everything was loving. He grew up in southern London, in an orphanage that his parents had dropped him off at because they were young and stupid. Or, at least, that’s what the owners of the orphanage told him, but he was sure they told everyone that so he wasn’t sure how true that was.

Arthur lived his whole life knowing that he was a mistake, that his parents didn’t want him for whatever reason and he was dropped off, taken out of their lives before he could blink.

He tried not to think about it, about his birth parents. His mom was probably a slender, little thing -- much like him -- and he liked to imagine that she had tears running down her pink cheeks as she set him on the porch of the grey building that went on for miles. Arthur liked to think that his parents weren’t exactly proud of themselves for giving him away; he liked to imagine that they were both sobbing messes when they dropped him off at the door.

But that was a hopeless fantasy that he knew was probably not true.

He didn’t let himself think it was true, because it was better to be hopeless than to be filled with hope that wasn’t true. Arthur didn’t want to be let down, had he ever found out what had happened with his parents.

While Arthur’s childhood was rough, it was also consistent, and Arthur supposed that was just as well.

 

*

15 Years Earlier

“Arthur, Arthur!” Ariadne ran up to him, her arms flailing in her child excitement, a grin spreading across Arthur’s cheeks.

“Ariadne,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around him, causing him to flinch because he had never been one for hugs, but hugged her back anyway because he’s polite and doesn’t want to upset her.

She looked up at him, and tugged his arm. “It’s time for hopscotch!”

“Hopscotch’s for girls.”

“Artoor, you promised!”

She’s whining and Arthur really, really hates it when someone whines, because it’s annoying and it makes his head hurt, but hearing his best friend whine is totally different. It feels like something that’s out of his control, something horrible that he can’t fix, and that absolutely kills him. He smiled at her softly, reassuringly.

“Fine, fine.” He gave in just like he had always done before. He couldn’t say no to Ariadne.

She grinned and pulled his wrist over the hopscotch area, and Arthur felt his heart beat out of control when he saw who was sitting on the bench not far off.

Eames.

Or, Jonathan, rather, but everyone called him Eames. Arthur never asked about why he did this and he knew he probably never would. Eames wasn’t like the other kids at Pine-Ridge North; he wasn’t conforming to anyone or anything, even though Arthur had suspected that he would eventually have to.

Arthur was smart for his age. He was only a mere twelve years old, but he knew what was coming. He highly doubted the other kids knew as well, being too wrapped up in their childhood naivety to really question or care. He had always been the observer, and he knew that himself, as well as the other children here had been given the short end of the stick.

He kept his mouth shut, though, when he knew he probably should’ve said something, but he didn’t, because he thought he was protecting his friends.

Eames was insufferable, annoying, and a complete and total petulance to Arthur’s life, but he found himself drawn to the other boy in a way that he couldn’t quite comprehend. He might’ve only been twelve, but he knew what he felt for Eames ran deeper than what he felt for his other classmates -- girls and boys included.

He didn’t let himself think about it too much, for he was only twelve, and Eames might’ve been fourteen, a ripe two years older than Arthur, but he was just admiring from afar for now.

Arthur had always been the type of person to take what he can get and to never push for more.

“You’ve played hopscotch before?” Ariadne asked him, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes that were glowing wildly with excitement.

He shook his head. “No. But I’ve watched you and the other girls do it more than a hundred times, I suppose.”

Ariadne grinned before taking his hand and put him behind her. “I’ll go first so you can see how you do it, just to be sure.”

She took off down the different squares, blindly running through it at a speed that he wasn’t even sure a human body would be comfortable with. She ran back around after finishing and pushed him to go.

He looked back at her nervously before nodding and then he started, following the stares. One foot. Two feet. One foot. One foot. Two feet. Two feet. Arthur found he was enjoying himself, and despite himself he laughed, and laughed and laughed, feeling more loose than he had since he could remember.

“Arthur’s a girl! Arthur’s a girl! Girly Arthur! Girly Arthur! Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!” The other boys chanted as Arthur went back for a second round. And as much as it would’ve bothered him earlier, it didn’t bother him now, he just kept on laughing.

He felt free.

 

*

 **Present**

“Can’t believe you’re still here, mate.” Yusuf tells him once Arthur walks into his room, a bag strapped against his shoulder. Arthur wasn’t sure how, but this was his last carer position until he finally got a few days rest up until his surgery. He was glad his last was Yusuf, because they were kind of close and Arthur had always enjoyed his company.

Arthur pats the other man’s arm, trying to be comforting, but it just ends up being awkward. If Yusuf noticed, he didn’t say anything, he never did. “I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see you again.”

He’s thrown into a fit of coughing, and Arthur has to look away. Yusuf looked different since the last time he saw him, which was a good seven or so years ago, but he looked so different Arthur wouldn’t believe it was him if he hadn’t been sure. He’d always been a heavy-set man, but the ninety-five pound individual laying down next to him was anything but. He had dark, vicious circles under his eyes that were honestly Hollywood material, and he really, really looked like he was on his death bed.

Arthur knew he was, the doctors had told him that Yusuf would be lucky if he made it to the end of the week. He just simply didn’t have the drive to live anymore, and most of the people that didn’t have the drive, didn’t have the fuel to stay alive any longer.

“How’s Ariadne?”

Arthur shrugs, trying to look nonchalant as possible, even though he was almost positive that Yusuf knew that his girlfriend was holding up better than he was. “She’s doing really great actually. She talked about you for a good twenty minutes straight.” Arthur knew that it would make him feel better, and he knew he was right as he saw a broad, earth-shattering grin stretched across his face.

“She’s a fighter,” he whispers fondly. “I just wish I had the drive to be as strong as her.”

Arthur bites his lip. “She told me that you two have been together since I left. Is that true?’

If he notices the switch in subject change, he doesn’t comment on it, but simply slips into a wistful state, one that Arthur can’t help but admire. “It is. We actually got together the day after you left, and the day before Eames left.”

Arthur rose his brow. “Eames?”

Yusuf nods. “Mhm,” He whispers tiredly, “I was surprised, they usually don’t let two people from the same center be a carer that close to each other, but I guess they just couldn’t choose one of you so they brought both.”

Arthur purses his lips, feeling his heart do something weird in his chest that he hadn’t felt since he left The Villages when he was eighteen. He’d always expected that Eames had already passed, being as he was a good two years older than Arthur (Arthur being 27 now, Eames being 29). It wasn’t expected for people in their ‘business’ to live past thirty. But to know that Eames was out there, somewhere, probably not even have gone into his first surgery yet, made his heart leap with hope.

Maybe, just maybe, he could see him again.

They had been close as children, but slowly drifted apart as Arthur pulled himself away, not ready to give into the feelings that were swelling inside his body that he didn’t comprehend; that he couldn’t comprehend. He had been a coward, Arthur had always been a coward, and he still was; he had withdrawn himself from everything that meant anything to him, including Eames.

But Eames was different. He was only sixteen, and there were emotions running through him that he didn’t understand, emotions running through him that he knew would be seen as right, so he pushed them away, ultimately pushing Eames away along with them.

“Have you talked to him?” He hears himself ask before he can stop himself.

“Not recently, no. He was my carer on my second operation, and he had said that he wouldn’t be going into being a donor for at least another year.”

Yusuf was on his third, now, and that gave Arthur a string of hope. You’d have an operation once every two years until they couldn’t just take the small ones organs out anymore. If anything, Eames would have only gone through his first surgery, and that meant that he could still get in touch with Eames before they both passed.

Arthur hoped, at least, that this would prove to be true.

“So he couldn’t be past his first surgery now?” Arthur asks.

He nods, looking up at Arthur with a look that he didn’t quite understand. “If my predictions and what he told me are correct, then he would’ve just had his first surgery a couple of days ago.”

“Interesting.”

Yusuf smiles. “I know, Arthur, you don’t have to hide anything from me,” he tells him, but Arthur just shrugs uncomfortably and looks at his hands for a long time, willing himself to not look up at the man lying in the bed, knowing his resolve would break.

It hurt to talk about Eames because of what Arthur did to him, how he basically abandoned him because he was too much of a coward to do what they both so obviously wanted. That was in the past now, though, and Arthur could only hope that Eames would want a future with him, even as friends. Possibly.

Arthur clears his throat after several minutes, maybe even more, fishing for a book in his bag and grins sheepishly at him. “I brought you something.”

Yusuf smiles, sort of. “Tsk, tsk,” he tuts, “you know you’re not supposed to bring anything to donors that just got out of surgery.”

“I couldn’t quite help it, I knew it’d make you feel better.” He never usually admits to caring about people so much, but this was Yusuf, and this was probably the last time he’d see him, and Arthur just didn’t care.

“Well, come on, don’t leave me wondering.”

Arthur pulls out ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story,’ from his bag, knowing that it was Yusuf’s favorite book. He wasn’t sure why Yusuf loved it so much, maybe it was because Yusuf was harboring something that Arthur didn’t know about, or maybe it was because the book was relatable. Arthur wasn’t sure, but he knew that it the one book that never failed to make him feel better about what was happening to him, and Arthur wanted to make Yusuf feel good. He wanted Yusuf to know that someone cared about him, besides Ariadne, because there were times that Arthur wasn’t sure either.

But they were different; they were so different it was almost painful. Yusuf was a better man than Arthur would ever be; he hadn’t ran from anything, he faced everything head on. Yusuf had just lost the will to live.

Arthur wanted to live, he just didn’t know how.

Yusuf broke out into a grin when he saw what was in his hands, and he knew that all of the trouble that he had gone through with getting the book was worth seeing Yusuf’s face.

“Is this my eyes failing me or is that really ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ in your hands?” Yusuf asks.

Arthur wills himself to chuckle a little, even if it was strangled. “Your eyes would not be failing you.”

Yusuf grins so wide that his cheeks were probably hurting, but it was the most beautiful thing Arthur had ever seen, and he felt his cheeks hurt. “Arthur,” Yusuf says so quietly, but it says so much and Arthur feels like he’s on top of the world because he’s happy. He’s finally happy and Yusuf was never happy.

Arthur smiles, running his fingers over the spine of the book, feeling his chest tighten in a way that he hadn’t felt since he had learned that he was going to be carer. It was something bittersweet, something that Arthur was happy about, but something that was so depressing as well that he wasn’t sure how to feel. He was a mess, and so was a Yusuf but in totally different ways.

After a few moments, Arthur adds, “I’d like to read it to you, if you’d like.”

“Of course,” he whispers, “that would be just lovely, Arthur.”

So Arthur does just that; he reads and reads and reads to Yusuf until his voice is raw and he can barely speak anymore. His voice physically hurts, but as he sees him slip into a slumber that he knows isn’t troubled or malice, he can’t let himself regret it. It was what Yusuf had needed, and Arthur had given him that.

“Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Okay, it’s gay-” Though Arthur really didn’t think so, “whatever, skip. Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run Home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They’re yours, Craig-” Yusuf. Arthur. Ariadne. Eames. “you deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here. Now love for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.” He pauses for a moment, even though he knows Yusuf is out, he pauses because that’s what his heart tells him to do, and now that he was bitter and older than a teenager, he allowed himself to listen to his heart every once in a while. “Live.” He reads to no one but himself, out loud, and he swore he saw Yusuf smile a little in his sleep. Arthur couldn’t be positive, but he told himself that Yusuf had been, because it made this easier.

He pats Yusuf’s arm gently, much less awkward than it was, before pausing for a few seconds to drop a tentative, friendly kiss on Yusuf’s forehead. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known.” Maybe he says something different; he wasn’t quite sure because his mind was hazy and he couldn’t think straight. He’d like to think he said something nice, because it wasn’t the right time to be a dick, even under Arthur’s standards. With one last glance, he then picks up his bag and leaves the room, not before having switched off the light.

 

*

 

Yusuf died that night. Arthur was glad that it didn’t happen while he was there. Knowing that Yusuf had held on until he had left the room meant more than he could say.

Now, he was alone. Alone with nothing to do, no one to see, and an incredible urge to go out and get violently drunk -- not that he ever had. He had never touched alcohol or cigarettes and he hadn’t touched drugs or anything slightly illicit. His organs had to be in tip top shape. Sure, he had a boring youth, but knowing that he was helping someone helped. Sort of.

He wanted to bend the rules; he wanted to live life on the edge, maybe get away from this town and all of their naive expectations about what he should do with his life and live life on the run. Even though it was pointless, even though he knew that as soon as he left they’d just bring him back, Arthur longed for it. He longed for a life that wasn’t his own. He longed for a life that was better than his.

His fingers scratched lazily behind his dog’s ear, and he drops a kiss down to her forehead gently. “This is the last night between you and I, pup,” he whispers, looking into her caramel eyes, simply getting a head butt to his palm in return.

“I’m going to miss you,” he whispers, hugging her close, cuddling with her because he knows he’ll never see her again. He drifts off into a troubled sleep, no doubt to only wake up in the morning feeling worse than he had felt today.

Tomorrow was the day of his surgery. Tomorrow was the day that his life changed, drastically, completely, and for the worse. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

 

*  
11 Years Earlier

Eames was eighteen, now, and Arthur was sixteen, just turned, and they were sitting out beside the lake on the far end of their grounds. Their feet were dangling into the pond water, knowing that it would upset their headmasters, but neither of them cared. It was Eames’ last day, and they had sworn that they would make the best of it, that they would spend as much time as possible together.

Eames had insisted that they go out to the lake, where they had spent a lot of time there, talking about absolutely nothing, bonding over quirks and likes that they hadn’t even known they had. But now, they were older; Arthur was the ripe age of teenage youth at its best, Eames quickly approaching adulthood.

It scared the shit out of him but he never said anything, even though he knew that Eames was in the same place he was.

“I can’t believe it’s my last day here,” Eames whispered, skipping a stone across the water. He looked over at Arthur briefly, almost like he wanted to kiss him. But there were people watching; Arthur never did anything when people were watching them.

Arthur nodded, skipping a stone too because he felt awkward standing there with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “It’s going to be weird not waking up to someone yelling in my ear. Can’t say I’ll miss it though.”

“Arsehole,” Eames squinted, and Arthur laughed, something he hadn’t been able to do since they got the news that Eames would be leaving in just a few days.

Arthur had made a grunt, before looking over at Eames. “I’m going to miss you.” He had never been one to be sentimental, but he knew that Eames needed to hear those words just as much as Arthur needed to say them.

“I know. I’m going to miss you too.” Eames said.

They sat in silence for a while, but it wasn’t awkward or stressed, it was comfortable, like they were sitting there, having an actual conversation instead of just staring at the lake. Arthur wasn’t sure how he was going to feel once Eames had left, though he knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“I’ll wait for you, you know,” Eames whispered after a while of silence.

Arthur simply looked at him. “Will you?”

Eames smiled, kissing Arthur’s hand softly, before dropping it completely. “I shall.” Arthur smiled and then leaned his head on his shoulder, excited by the promise, but expecting for it to be broken.

Eames had kept his promise, but Arthur never managed to keep his.

 

*

13 Years Earlier

When Arthur and Eames first kissed, Arthur was fourteen, and Eames was sixteen. It was at one of the ‘parties’ that the kids threw, sneaking off into the woods when their headmasters and caretakers were long tucked into bed down the hall. They were sitting around a small pond made of the recent rain water in the woods, shaking and talking about anything that came to mind.

Eames looked over at Arthur, with a look that he had never seen on the other boy: fear, nervousness, excitement. He contributed it to the fact that they were sneaking out without any other persons -- including the other kids, who had claimed that they were too tired to go out, but looking back on it now Arthur supposed that Eames had told them not to go.

He cleared his throat a few seconds later, before skimming his hands along the leg of Arthur’s pants, causing him to involuntarily shudder. It caused Eames’ smile to widen, and the look of fear in his eyes to diminish, slightly. “Can I ask you something, Arthur?”

“What do you want to ask?” Arthur’s breath was catching in his throat, Eames’ fingers sliding up to rest on his knee.

“Well, I was, um, wondering, uh, you’ve been...” Eames trailed off before he looked over at him. “Are you... you know, gay?”

Arthur gulped, knowing that he couldn’t lie to Eames, his best friend, and he could easily leave the other boy had it not worked out the way Arthur was hoping it would. “Yes,” Arthur says, the other boy’s shoulders visibly deflating. “Are you?”

Eames nodded, so fast and violent that he’d sworn his head would fly off, which wasn’t good, because Eames’ head was much too pretty to do such a thing. “I am.”

Before Arthur could properly process that Eames was gay, he felt soft, slightly chapped, plush lips connect to his own, and his thoughts melted away. Kiss. It took him a few moments, but he tentatively returned the kiss, melting into Eames’ body. He tasted like strawberries, smoke and barbecue, something deliciously wonderful that made Arthur’s senses crawl with excitement.

The kiss had ended as fast as it had began, and when Arthur opened his eyes he saw Eames staring at him sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Arthur smiled, something that he hadn’t done often, but Eames was being so adorably charming, so he made an exception. “Don’t apologize.”

Eames opens his mouth to say something, before closing it quickly, only to open his mouth a few moments later again. “Did you... did you like that?” He seems almost flustered; Eames was never flustered, he was always cool and in control, something that Arthur envied him for.

But he wasn’t cool, and controlled; he was vulnerable, and shy, even. Arthur had never seen someone look so beautiful.

He’d never seen Eames so beautiful before.

Arthur didn’t respond verbally. He knew that, in the morning, he’d feel regretful that he did this with him, because he knew it wasn’t not right, but at the moment, he didn’t care. Eames was lovely, older, hot and completely and totally charming, and if he wanted to kiss Arthur, well, who was he to stop him?

Arthur pressed his lips to Eames, who immediately opened the kiss, and Arthur couldn’t recall a moment when he had been happier.

 

*

 **Present**

Arthur wakes up feeling cold, lost, distant, hurting all over and completely and totally thought free. Something felt weird, something reminded him of home, but his mind wasn’t working properly so he couldn’t investigate further.

He slurps some water that his carer makes him take before he passes out again, cold.

Eames.

 

*

 

When Arthur wakes up again, he’s in the same hospital room. The walls are a pale yellow, so pale that they’re almost white and they’re closing in on him -- though he’s sure that’s an effect of all of the drugs he’s currently on. Or maybe it’s his anxiety. His entire body is tingling with something that he can’t quite place, and he’s drowsy.

“Arthur.” He looks over, slowly, which still hurts his body, but the pain is just a faint stinging, the drugs dulling most of it away.

“Hngh.”

The person smiles at him; they have a nice smile, a pretty smile that Arthur can catch amidst all of the blurry edges. “You’re finally awake.”

Arthur didn’t feel awake, he didn’t feel even slightly awake, he felt like he was sleeping, or dreaming, maybe even dead. Arthur wasn’t sure because he’d never been dead before, and if he wasn’t dead, then he definitely wasn’t sleeping. He felt out of sorts; he didn’t feel like himself, but that was to be expected.

“I am?” He asks.

The person laughs, too close, way too close and Arthur has to struggle to keep focus on the voice. He was fading, fading, fading and the black that threatened to engulf him was almost too enticing to ignore.

“You’ve been out for hours,” the voice says, and Arthur feels like laughing, he feels like laughing, and he feels like crying. His emotions are mixing and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He just wants it to stop but it’s confusing and he doesn’t know what he wants to go away and what he wants to stay.

Arthur thinks he says something along the lines of ‘that’s interesting’ but he probably mumbled something intelligently like ‘oh’. Arthur wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t in the right mind to investigate, so he fell, fell, fell into the black abyss that had taken such good care of him before.

Only he could’ve sworn he heard something like ‘Arthur’ coming from the bed beside him. He wasn’t positive, but it sounded like Eames.

And Arthur was sure that he was hallucinating that one because Eames wouldn’t be close to Arthur, he wouldn’t be that close.

 

*

11 Years Earlier

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Eames asked and Arthur had to laugh.

“Why?”

“Well, we’re going to get out of here, yeah? And we’re going to explore the world, and meet new people, make new friends, have sex.” He whispered the word like it’s the most sultry thing anyone has ever said, and it probably will be the sultriest word anyone will say in a world like theirs.

“You think we’re getting out of here?” Arthur asked, looking over at Eames, studying his face carefully. He seemed serious, and that broke Arthur’s heart; it broke it to pieces because Arthur knew the truth while Eames obviously didn’t.

Eames nodded, smiling at Arthur brightly, taking his hand in his own, their fingers entwining. “Of course we are, they can’t keep us forever.”

Arthur gulped. “Of course they can’t,” he whispered. because what is he really supposed to say? He was conflicted, and lost, and helpless, and as much as he wanted to tell Eames that they’ll never be out of this place, that this place will always haunt them, he can’t.

Eames grinned broadly. “We’re going to get out together,” he whispered, and it sounded like a promise.

“I know,” Arthur tried his best at keeping his voice even, though he felt like crying until he can’t stop the tears. Luckily, Arthur has always been good at keeping a poker face, even if this was the one time that he wished he wasn’t.

Eames’ naivety was heartbreaking, something Arthur couldn’t correct without breaking Eames in the process. He was going to avoid that at all costs, because Eames was too lovely and he didn’t deserve to get his dreams crushed.

“We’ll go out together, and we’ll get jobs together, just like the best of mates,” he told Arthur with so much excitement and such faith and so much sureness that he had to look away.

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to be doctors, so we can help people that are sick.”

Arthur smiled and then nodded, kissing Eames tenderly on the forehead, before turning away once more.

They weren’t going to be doctors, and they weren’t going to get out of the place where they had grown up. They wouldn’t have kids and they wouldn’t get married. They wouldn’t have grandkids, a stable job, and they wouldn’t be able to vote in the next election. They wouldn’t ever be normal, Arthur didn’t even consider themselves mortal, they were animals in the eyes of the people that raised them.

Soulless.

They were nothing special, they were replaceable, they were objects that didn’t matter to anyone but the people that they were helping. They were nothing in particular, nothing in the vast picture of life, they were just two kids that had been given the short side of the stick.

Eames was right about helping people, but he would never live to see the improvement that he would’ve caused. It wasn’t something pretty, something spectacular or something happy, it was something completely and totally dark, something that Arthur couldn’t control no matter what he tried.

But he supposed that was the most beautiful thing about it of all.

9 Years Earlier

It smelt like rosebushes, fresh grass, and something that Arthur didn’t recognize but it was lovely all the same. Arthur didn’t recognize a lot of things, but that was because he wasn’t used to a lot. He was straddling the borderline of innocence and adulthood; he felt old sometimes, but he felt young more often times than not.

Arthur was older, but he hadn’t experienced much. He was wise but didn’t know the basics to living like a normal human being. And he had friends but he truly was alone.

He was a walking contradiction, and maybe, just maybe, that was what he liked the most about himself.

Yusuf had a sad smile tugging his lips upward, and Ariadne looked like she was about to cry. He couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision, at least, not yet. He knew he was taking the easy way out, but he wasn’t exactly the best at doing something difficult.

Even though this was the easiest, and the most difficult thing that he would ever do.

“We’re going to miss you,” Ariadne wailed, throwing her arms around Arthur the way that she had when they were just barely transitioning from children to something more.

“I’m going to miss you too,” he had said, and it was the truth. He would miss them.

He had felt empty, like something was missing. Even though Yusuf and Ariadne were his best friends, he felt like a missing piece was still meant to be there, a missing person. He knew it was Eames, but he had barely spoken a few words to him in the few months that Arthur had been here.

It wasn’t Eames’ fault and he had no one to blame but himself.

“We tried to tell him to come.” Ariadne told him, and he appreciated her attempt at making him feel better, but it only made him feel like complete and utter shit.

Arthur had simply shrugged, or did something else equally as awkward and put out. “I didn’t expect him to.”

“What happened between you guys?” Yusuf asked, looking up from the book that he had been reading, ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’.

Arthur had given him a look that made him look back at what he was reading without much thought, and he sighed, “I fucked up.”

Ariadne smiled, in the way that used to always make him feel better but it didn’t make him feel better now, because what he had done couldn’t be fixed. Arthur had fucked that up a long time ago, there was no way that Eames would even think about forgiving him after the shit that he had pulled. It was too late.

It would always be too late.

“I’m sure Eames will forgive you faster than you’d think.”

Arthur shook his head. “It’ll always be too late.” Arthur had said, before grabbing his bags and hopping on the bus.

Arthur had tried, he had tried to get Eames to forgive him, but it hadn’t worked. Arthur still couldn’t give Eames what he wanted.

He didn’t know if he’d ever truly be able to.

 

*

9 Years Earlier (This happened after the previous one).

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Arthur asked angrily. Arthur had no right to be angry, but he felt the emotion swell in his stomach anyway.

He had met Eames’ eyes, hurt and empty, and he had to look away. He had done that; he had made Eames look so lost and vulnerable, just a shell, and he couldn’t keep his gaze knowing that he had done that. “I don’t care.”

Eames did though, he always would, and they both knew that. “I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Eames told him wryly.

Arthur had known that it wouldn’t, but he still wanted to try. All of the previous anger had melted away, and he was just feeling lost, hopeless, desperate. “I know.”

Eames had made a tutting noise, one that Arthur knew meant that he was annoyed or upset about something. “Well, I hope it’s better for you out there then how bloody terrible it was in here for you, apparently,” Eames told him.

Arthur felt his heart clench, and he had to look away, because he knew that it was hurting Eames as much as it was hurting himself. Eames didn’t deserve it, not after what Arthur had already put him through, but Arthur deserved it and so much more.

“I’ll see you around.” Arthur said, before picking up his bags and walking away, refusing to look back because then all of his resolve would’ve broken.

 

*

 

Arthur wakes up for the first time in the same hospital room, though it seems as if he switched beds. He doesn’t remember being on the right side of the room, but then again he wasn’t exactly in the state of mind to exactly to make that decision. So, Arthur mostly ignores it and instead looked around the room, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Arthur remembered the pale yellow walls, the curtains with floral on them -- which reminded him terribly of the villages -- and the various paintings on the room.

He does not, however, remember there being another bed with a sleeping individual on it. A sleeping individual that looked a lot like Eames. An Eames that looked like himself, but completely different at the same time. Arthur wasn’t exactly sure if he liked it, yet. He looked sick, and nothing like the strong teenager that Arthur remembered, but he was sleeping, and everyone looked considerably weak when they did that.

It was obvious that Eames had lost some weight, that he had changed in the nine years that he had last seen him. His cheeks were hollowed out, making his cheekbones more prominent than they already were previously. The stubble on his face was approaching a full on beard, and his once tan complexion was now as pale as Arthur’s.

But he was still the most beautiful human being that Arthur had ever seen.

And Arthur has to laugh because what else is there to really do besides laugh or cry? Laughing was easier, it felt better. He might’ve looked like a psychopath but that was better than being a blubbering mess of destruction and he’d take it in stride. Arthur was laughing so hard that he was crying, so he wasn’t doing the best at avoiding looking like a mess but he didn’t care.

Eames was here, and he had never thought he would be. He wasn’t sure what to think of the emotions swelling in his chest, especially because once Eames woke up and realized that he was sharing his room with Arthur, he’d probably throw a fit and punch Arthur in the face. And as much as it would’ve previously bothered him, Arthur would take it; he would take anything Eames would give him, because this was Eames.

He eventually calms down, with nothing to laugh at anymore, and he realizes just how bad of an idea it was to laugh. His side is killing him and he doesn’t know where the carer is to flag him or her down and tell them that he needs pain medication now.

Arthur shifts in the bed, at least the best he could while there was an intense pain in his abdomen that he couldn’t really ignore, and tries his best to do so. Arthur had never been particularly good with pain.

For instance, when he broke his arm when he was thirteen while playing in the trees with Eames and passed out from just hearing the crack, only to wake up and pass out again from the pain. Eames had to carry him out of the forest and that’s when Arthur realized that he had the knight in shining armor that all of the fairytales he had heard of as a young child. The thought did weird things to Arthur’s stomach, making his insides turn into something liquid -- Arthur would’ve been scared if he hadn’t been in so much pain that Eames’ skin was now a weird purple instead of the normal tan complexion that it usually was.

Arthur was just shaking off the memory when he noticed someone sit in the chair beside him. He looked up and met the eyes of someone that looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place who he was.

“I’m Dominic Cobb,” the man says, and Arthur immediately remembers him as the guy that was a few years below him, but was incredibly nice and intelligent. Arthur had always enjoyed his company. “I’m your carer, well, I think you know that by now,” he laughs, somewhat nervously and on edge.

“First time?” Arthur croaks out, because it’s entirely obvious.

Dom nods. “Obvious?”

“A little,” Arthur says, pausing for a few moments before he murmurs, “pain medication.”

“No. I’m not able to give them to you until you’re awake for an hour or so, just to make sure that you’re not going to fall asleep.” Arthur, of course, knew this, but it was worth a try.

“Fuck,” he whispers instead of stating so, and looks up at the ceiling.

Dom laughs, low and easy, a little awkward, but that was probably just because he was nervous and wasn’t sure exactly what to do when it came to this part. “You look familiar.”

“I’m Arthur. We were together at the same home when we were kids. You were a few years younger, I think, but we talked a few times.”

Dom squints a little, debating this and finally nods. “I see.”

“While I enjoy your reunion party, can I please get some fucking meds because I think my side is getting invaded by bugs with the worst possible weapons and I may or may not start screaming for them.”

Arthur snaps his head up; he recognized the voice, but he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t hallucinating, that it really was Eames, even though he had been staring at him for the last twenty minutes.

Dom laughs a little at this and then walks over to Eames’ bed. “Sadly, your carer doesn’t get in here for a while and I’m not permitted to give you medicine.”

Eames curses. “Bugger.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to do, so he simply rolls over to his good side, facing the wall and tries his best to fall asleep, trying to ignore Eames and Dom talking about something that didn’t concern him.

 

*

 

When Arthur wakes up again and it’s black inside the room. Arthur isn’t sure if that’s because he still has his eyes closed or because it’s nighttime at first. Arthur rolls over and looks at the clock, trying to make his eyes focus on just one thing.

2:32 A.M.

“Well, fuck,” he whispers to no one but himself, and looks over at the bed that holds Eames. He can’t tell if Eames was sleeping or not, because Eames’ had always been very, very good at being very, very still.

It was very quiet for a while. Arthur had a stabbing pain that was vibrating throughout his body so he didn’t expect on going to sleep soon, but he would be glad to take it. Anything was better than lying alone in the dark, left alone to just yourself and your thoughts, your subconscious.

“Arthur,” his name breaks him out of his revere and he has to look over back at the bed. Even though Eames couldn’t see him and Arthur couldn’t see Eames, it somehow comforted him to know that it really was Eames that was talking to Arthur, after how much he hurt him, after he had promised that he wouldn’t speak to Arthur again. It was honestly nice, something nice that he wasn’t expecting, but needed all the same.

“Eames?” He asks, only to make sure that he’s not hallucinating this situation up, that he is very much alone in this room.

The bed beside him makes some sort of tutting noise, and Arthur recognizes it immediately. “Didn’t think you’d be awake for a while. You’ve been passed out since Dom arrived.”

Arthur shrugs, and immediately regrets it because, one Eames couldn’t see him and it was useless, and two, because it hurt like fuck and he didn’t expect it. “Too painful to sleep.”

Eames scoffs. “Tell me about it, my carer never came so I’m stuck here until morning.”

Arthur purses his lips. It felt good to hear Eames’ voice again, one that he thought he’d never hear, but was incredibly grateful for. He knew that he was lucky that Eames was even speaking to him, let alone being civil to him. He didn’t deserve it, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

“What’re you in for?” Arthur asks instead of asking something self-destructive, such as: ‘why are you even speaking to me?’ or ‘you are absolutely gorgeous even when you look like you’re dying...’ . He was sure that Eames would make a real effort of getting out of bed just to thoroughly beat him if he said any of those.

There’s silence for a while, which isn’t surprising. Arthur wasn’t sure if he’d want to tell the person that had single handedly crushed everything that he had spent so long building why he was now roomed with him in a hospital.

“‘S my appendix,” he finally whispers. “How about you?”

“Kidney,” Arthur says, before chancing a glance over at Eames’ bed. He’s almost positive that his gray eyes are on him. He gulps, just because, and then fiddles his fingers nervously.

“Painful.” Eames says in a clipped tone, and Arthur knew that he wasn’t comfortable speaking with Arthur like this, like they were friends that had accidentally lost contact or like they were lovers that had gotten separated. They weren’t any of those; Arthur was the asshole that broke Eames’ heart, and Eames was just a man that would never not care.

Tragedy.

Arthur shrugs, simply because he can, and then remembers that he shouldn’t because, hello, pain. “S’okay.”

“It’s been a while,” Eames says.

Arthur nods. “I know. I went back to the Villages a couple of years after I left, but you weren’t there.” They both know that even if Eames was there nothing would’ve happened. Arthur was a pussy and Eames wouldn’t let his pride get in the way.

“I left two days after you to be a carer,” Eames says.

Arthur nods. “I know.”

He could practically feel Eames roll his eyes and quirk his brow. “Keeping tabs on me, are you Arthur?” There’s a hint of something playful, and he bets that he had to force it out.

Arthur chuckles a little, despite himself. “Yusuf told me.”

“Mm, good bloke. I haven’t seen him in years, though.”

Arthur catches his bottom lip between his teeth and lets out a shattered breath. “I saw him a couple of days ago.”

“How is he?” He could hear Eames’ smile in his voice, and Arthur didn’t want to be the one to tell him that Yusuf had completed, especially because he knew that Eames and Yusuf were closer than Arthur would’ve liked.

“He, um, well, he, uh--”

“He’s completed, hasn’t he?” Eames asks quickly, and he could hear the hurt seeping through his voice.

“He died after I left the room, I was his last carer.” Arthur doesn’t say it to spite him.

“Weird, considering that I was his first,” Eames says, and Arthur could hear the rustling of pillows and sheets.

Eames was done talking, but Arthur listened until his breathing evened out.

 

*

13 Years Earlier

“I’ll never let you go,” Arthur whispered to Eames, and he could feel Eames’ smile into his neck.

“Mm, getting all sentimental, are we?”

Arthur had narrowed his eyes, only to smack Eames on the shoulder, before pressing his lips to the hallow of Eames’ throat. “Shut up, I can get sentimental.”

Eames laughed, easy and happily, threading his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “Oh? I think you’re just getting into the holiday spirit.” He had whispered.

Arthur head butted Eames in the chest, rolling his eyes in the process as he settled into the other boy’s shoulder. “I like you.”

Eames had smirked cockily and nodded his head. “I know.”

“Asshole.” Arthur said, but there was no real heat behind it, and he was laughing. He had never felt happier. “You’re supposed to say that you like me too, because you know, it is Valentine’s Day, and all.”

“The headmaster told us never to lie, Arthur.” He had winked, and Arthur probably would’ve slapped Eames if he hadn’t pressed their lips together.

These were the moments that Arthur had cherished, when it was just Eames and him, the whole world forgotten, by the lake. When they would stay there from when they were released from class until they were called in for dinner. Where they would then come back to at night and kiss and talk, and make plans, plans that Arthur had full intent on keeping at the time, but would never be able to keep later. These were the moments that Arthur wished he could have back, that he could go back to, when he was still a little innocent, when he wasn’t this corrupted.

Arthur had kissed him back, chaste and slow, but romantic and easy. They hadn’t done anything but, and Arthur didn’t really know if they ever intended to do anything more. Sure, they had learnt about it in school, but he wasn’t sure if Eames wanted to go that far.

Arthur would take as much as Eames would give him.

They pulled away after just a few moments, mostly from paranoia of getting caught, and he had felt empty inside. Eames had pressed their foreheads together, and was stroking Arthur’s cheeks with slight, tentative fingertips while he leant into the touch. They stayed like that for a while, he wasn’t sure how long exactly, but it didn’t matter, because he was with Eames, and he would waste his whole life with Eames doing nothing but just this, enjoying his company and basking in just everything that was Eames.

“One day, I’ll love you.” Eames had whispered, after how ever long had passed, like it was a promise. Looking back on it now, Arthur could tell that from Eames, it practically was a life sentence to Arthur and his heart.

Eames did eventually love him, if he hadn’t already when he had whispered that. Arthur expected that much to be true, especially being as Arthur was only thirteen, turning fourteen in a few days when it had happened, and Eames had already been sixteen for a while. And as much as Arthur didn’t understand the gravity behind those words, and how he would someday return them, he loved him back, now.

But it was much too late, and Arthur knew Eames had never been fond of giving out second chances, especially to people like Arthur who didn’t deserve them.

 

*

 

Arthur had never been good with words; he had never been one that could woe someone with just what had tumbled out of his mouth, or by the way he said something. That’s where Eames and him differed. Eames could talk someone into practically killing a man, and Arthur, well, he could talk someone into doing the opposite. Eames had always been a smooth talker; he had always been the one to say the right things to get him out of trouble and he always had all of the birds following him -- even though Eames insisted that he knew that he hadn’t been attracted to girls from an early age. Arthur decided that it was just something he had said so Arthur would feel a little less weird about this, because he had known that he was gay from the time he was nine years old, even though he hadn’t known the correct term for it yet. It had scared the shit out of him, and it still did.

“You better stop thinking so hard, Arthur, or before you know it you’re going to end up like me: wrinkly and squinty before you’re thirty,” Dom laughs, as he sits by his bed.

Arthur quirks a curious eyebrow. “Dom, you’re barely twenty-four.”

“My point, exactly.” Arthur shakes his head, but has to laugh, because Dom had this air about him that just made you feel at ease and happy.

This particular air reminded him very much of Eames.

“How long are you here for?”

“A few hours, probably. I want to wait here for Mal. We’re supposed to catch a quick dinner before heading off to back to my place to watch a movie or two.” Dom says, leaning back in his chair, grabbing for the chips that were by his feet, and Arthur can practically taste those fuckers.

“That’s just downright cruel, Dom, even for you.” Arthur whispers, completely ignoring what he had said about hanging around for Mal. It was no secret to anyone that Mal and Dom had been involved since they were teenagers. Arthur would’ve thought it was remarkably beautiful if he wasn’t blinded by jealousy.

It still was beautiful.

Dom just smirks, because he’s a morbid, sadistic, psychopathic squinter like that, and he could honestly say that he hated him. Because they were sour cream and union chips and he had never wanted something that tasted that delicious more than he did now.

“I know. But they’re so delicious,” he purrs the last word and Arthur was thinking through the ways that would sufficiently kill a man creatively and thoroughly.

“You’re a dick.”

Dom shrugs. “Speaking of dicks, how are you and Eames?”

Arthur narrows his eyes, squinting at the ultimate squinter. Luckily, Dom had enough class to ask him when Eames was out walking the grounds with Mal, but that didn’t make this any less embarrassing, nor did it stop the flush that covered his cheeks at his words.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arthur asks stubbornly.

“Eames and you,” Dom says like he’s talking to an incompetent child, and if he had the strength, Arthur would’ve punched him.

“There isn’t an ‘Eames and me’,” he says, because it’s true. Eames didn’t want anything to do with him and it’s not like Arthur could force Eames to like him.

“There used to be. You know, I used to be jealous of you and Eames, before I found Mal. I was jealous because you could tell that the something that you had, while it wasn’t perfect, it was real, and I suppose that’s more beautiful than it being real,” Dom says.

Arthur bites his lip. “Well, I screwed that up before I could even understand what was going on.”

Dom shakes his head. “I bet,” he starts, “I bet that you’re going to find that you haven’t ruined anything.”

“He hates me.” Arthur says, sure, so sure, because he would hate him too if he was Eames.

“He doesn’t. He’s had a lot of time to think about what happened, and I bet he understands more about this than he let’s on.”

Arthur shrugs. “Even if that’s true, I hurt him bad, Dom. Real, real bad, and I know that if I was Eames, that I wouldn’t forgive me.”

Dom looks at him, merely squints at him for a lot longer than Arthur can handle, before turning back to the bag of chips in his hand. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing that you’re not Eames, hm?”

 

*

 

Arthur woke up a few hours later, to someone poking his left cheek, swatting the hand away. He made contact with a really, really hot hand and it makes him open his eyes. He looked over and saw Eames, staring at him with an expression that he couldn’t read. Not that he could ever really read him. Arthur blinks a few times, making sure that he is in fact, awake, before clearing his throat.

“Eames, what are you doing?” He croaks, his voice raw and he’s sure it’s from the coughing attack he had after Dom and him had the talk about the devil that was sitting on his side.

“Come out with me?” Eames asks, and he nearly chokes.

“Wh-what?”

“Come outside with me?” He repeats, looking into Arthur’s eyes. They’re shielded from emotion, and that annoys him more than he could have anticipated. He shouldn’t have expected anything more, of course. Eames had always been an incredibly private man, which made him that much harder to read.

“I can barely walk.” Arthur says, totally not making excuses, and just stating obstacles that could not be avoided. He really did want to talk to Eames more, but he was also afraid that this little ‘meeting’ that he wanted would cause him to be in the hospital much longer than he needs to be. He had this reoccurring vision that the other man was only taking him out there to beat the shit out of him.

“Ah,” Eames says, and then gestures beside him. “Neither can I, but that doesn’t stop me from getting into a wheelchair. You need air, Arthur. You’ve been locked in this room for about five days now, and I know you’re about to go mental, if you already haven’t.”

Arthur doesn’t know why Eames cares if he’s gone mental or not. Arthur supposes that he’s just as lonely as he is, so he nods cautiously and they try to get him out of his bed and into the chair. It takes a good ten minutes or so because Arthur’s upper body strength has completely deteriorated and Eames isn’t as strong as he once was.

They glide around in the chairs for a while, mostly in silence because like old times, they don’t really like speaking to one another where other people can hear. Arthur’s not sure why he was invited out of the room with Eames, but he’s not stupid enough to question it. He simply follows him to wherever he plans on taking him.

Arthur is still able to take whatever Eames gives him.

It’s a while before they reach where Arthur suspects he wanted to take them. It’s a lake, much like the one where they grew up, and he feels a painful tug in his chest as soon as his eyes rest on it. Arthur’s not sure if he did this on purpose, to bring back memories or to just go somewhere where Eames knew that they could talk, where Arthur would listen. Arthur didn’t think too much about it, because his anxiety was already peaking in his chest and he didn’t want it to go further than it already had.

He didn’t understand how Eames could act so calm and collected when he knew, when he absolutely was sure that the man was about four seconds away from a mental break down. Arthur was positive of it. He knew that Eames couldn’t just sit there like nothing could happened between them. Eames was thirsting for a kill; whether it was to scream, kill or just hurt him, physically or emotionally, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that it was coming.

But he was as calm and collected as he could be; he offered to help Arthur through the harder parts of the trail on the way to the lake, he held onto Arthur’s hand when he was struggling with going over a speed bump. He was the perfect gentleman. It just annoyed him more. He wanted Eames to crack, to tell him how he really felt, and he knew it was approaching, he just wanted it now. None of this fake bullshit that the other man was so comfortable in engorging himself in.

Arthur doesn’t say as much, because he knows when to keep his mouth shut and when he shouldn’t, so he simply looks back at the lake as Eames releases his hand. He feels a slight pain in his chest, but ignores it, pegging it as a result from the cold rather than losing the warmth surrounding his hand.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Eames laughs lightly and Arthur nods.

“It definitely does. Though, this lake is more... kept then the one back at the homes.”

Eames makes a noise in agreement, drumming his fingers along his thigh. “That’s because they have people to impress here.”

“Why’d you invite me, you know, out here?” Arthur asks before he could censor himself. He usually didn’t let words slip out like that, but this was Eames, and Arthur would be lying if he hadn’t said that this wasn’t more than a little intoxicating.

Eames shrugs then, making a pained noised in his throat when he realized that probably wasn’t a good idea and then chances a glance at him. “I can’t invite you out to enjoy the view?”

“No, you can, but I’m just, I don’t understand why.”

He purses his lips. “Enjoy now, ask questions later,” he says in a chipped tone and he doesn’t question it further.

It’s the calm before the storm, and Arthur knows the storm is coming.

 

*

 

It’s not until a few days later when Eames’ resolve finally breaks. Arthur had been expecting it, of course, but it was still shocking -- and somewhat frightening to see. They were perched on a log, both of them now able to walk, even though it was tedious and difficult. They’d never been one to back down when it came to testing their body’s limits.

Eames looks over at Arthur, an unreadable expression on his face, and then it’s replaced by something that caught him off guard: anger. “You left.” Simple, he says it without much more than a clipped tone.

“So did you.”

“You left long before I did,” he slurs, drunk on emotion and pain medication, and Arthur hadn’t seen him look more frightening. His hands were now balled into fists, his eyes were casted downwards but Arthur bets on anything that they were definitely clouded dark with animosity.

He doesn’t know what to say, he can’t deny what Eames says. Well, he could, but that would be something that would only anger him more, and while he knew that Eames needed to let out all of this anger that’s been swelling inside of him for years, Arthur really does appreciate his face enough to not push him further.

Arthur stays quiet. He doesn’t know for how long, but he stays quiet because he doesn’t know what to say, letting the silence of the lake carry out what he couldn’t carry out in words. And finally, finally, it’s Eames, pushing at his shoulder with the gentlest of fingertips, that somehow have tenacious force that takes his attention away from the silence to look at Eames’ face.

“Why.” He doesn’t state it as a question, he just looks into Arthur’s eyes, and Arthur feels a pain in his chest that he doesn’t quite recognize until it feels like his heart is getting manipulated and torn out of his chest.

“I don’t know,” he says, because it’s simple, and easy, and Arthur has always been a coward when it was least efficient.

Eames growls, low and deep in his throat, animalistic, even. “Don’t lie to me. If there’s one thing that you owe me, it’s honesty.”

Arthur’s always been a bit of an asshole, so instead of answering, he simply walks away, refusing to look back, because if he had, he’d crumble to pieces and tell Eames everything.

 

*

15 Years Earlier

He was twelve when Eames talked to him for the first time. Arthur may or may not have been three steps away from having heart palpitations the entire time. Arthur had been reading a book, The Great Gatsby, to be exact, when the somewhat burly -- mostly muscular -- boy approached him.

“What’re you reading?” He had asked, as he took a seat beside Arthur, a little too close but not close enough, peering over Arthur’s shoulder.

“The Great Gatsby,” Arthur said proudly. He was twelve, and that had to be somewhat impressive, right?

Eames did look impressed as he gave Arthur an easy smile. “F. Scott Fitzgerald? I’ve always been a J.D. Salinger guy, myself.”

“You’ve read The Catcher in the Rye?” Arthur asked.

“Of course. Though that’s not my favorite.”

“Oh?” Arthur had asked, quirking a curious eyebrow, an expression that would stay with him long beyond the years of being a teen. “What is your favorite, then?”

“Pride and Prejudice.”

“So you like Jane Austen then?”

Eames had nodded, sheepishly. “I do. But if you tell anyone that, I’ll lodge a fist in your head so fast that you couldn’t tell anyone ever again.”

Arthur gulped. “I wont tell, I promise.”

“Good.”

They talked for hours, about absolutely nothing, but somehow they seemed to cover everything. Arthur found the time enjoyable; it was nice and he hadn’t been close with a guy before. Arthur had always been labeled as ‘queer’ by the other kids at the camp and most of the other boys avoided him like the plague. Looking back on it now, Arthur wasn’t sure how they’d learned that name in the first place, but one of them probably picked it up from a novel they’d browsed through somewhere.

That’s how it worked: either you were the eater or you got eaten, and Arthur had always been the one to get eaten. He wasn’t particularly sad about this. He didn’t really mind it; half of the kids calling him names weren’t even aware of what they meant, even if their accusations had been unknowingly correct.

Eames though, Eames seemed different. He seemed like Arthur in many ways, but different in others, and he found himself feeling safe and comfortable around him. He hoped that he would continue to talk to Arthur, because he had liked his company more than he would ever willingly admit.

Arthur wouldn’t be able to predict just how close they would actually become.

Eventually, they had heard a call, signaling that it was time for dinner. Eames looked over at Arthur, and smiled, openly, and a little bit amused, probably because a blush was steadily making it’s way across his cheeks right now.

“You wanna walk there together?”

Arthur nodded. “Sure,” Eames was two years older, meaning that he was in a different dining hall, but they were relatively close so Arthur hadn’t minded walking with Eames. Plus, if he was being honest with himself -- which he hardly ever was -- then he really did want to talk to him more.

Eames bumped his shoulder. “You’re pretty cool. For a twelve year old, I mean.”

“Yeah, you’re cool too, you know, just in general.” Arthur may or may not have had hearts in his eyes, and by the way that Eames had smiled at him, he was pretty sure he had seen it too.

Eames had risen his eyebrows in a way that Arthur would come to know that he was amused about something. Arthur had come to hate that expression. “Oh?”

Arthur looked away, blushing terribly red, but he didn’t miss the amused chuckle that had escaped Eames’ lips. “You’re really something else, you know,” Eames mumbled offhandedly, trying to seem cool, but Arthur could sense the nerves behind the voice.

“Yeah?” Arthur squeaked and Eames nodded as they reached his dining hall.

“I was kidding, about hurting you, you know.” Eames said as he walked away. “You’re much too pretty to hurt.”

If Arthur was smiling the entire way back to his dining room, well that was because he had been able to get in some time to spend with his favorite book characters, and it totally wasn’t because Eames basically offhandedly admitted that he wanted Arthur.

*

“You owe it to him, you know,” Ariadne says to him as she visits him in the hospital one day, and curse her for being right about nearly everything.

 

Arthur sighs, because he knows this but he doesn’t know if he could ever tell Eames how wrong he was because of his pride and because it was too little too late. “I know,” he tells her, not really able to tell her anything else, and then stares at the pale yellow walls that were now making his stomach churn in a really uncomfortable way.

 

“You can’t hide from him forever, Arthur. I know that it was easy, back then, when you guys were teenagers, but you weren’t there after you left,” she tells him.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arthur asks, pausing for a moment before continuing. “He seemed perfectly fine while I was there, why would he change when I left?”

 

Ariadne looks like she’s contemplating hitting him, but decides against it because he’s sort of in a crippled condition right now and she’s not annoyed enough to go against her morals. “When you left, Arthur, he, he was a mess.”

 

Arthur quirks an eyebrow. “A mess?”

 

“He’s been in love with you since you were thirteen, Arthur. He’s been in love with you for fifteen years and you just walk around like you don’t care. Tell me, if Eames walked around like he didn’t care, wouldn’t you be pissed? You would want to hurt people, you would want to do stupid shit.”

 

“He hurt people?”

 

“Not people -- himself.”

 

Arthur looks at her for a moment, before the incredible and undeniable guilt settles in. “What?” He asks once he trusts his voice enough not to falter.

 

“He didn’t hurt other people, he hurt himself,” she clarifies.

 

And Arthur truly doesn’t know what to think about that. Eames had always been headstrong and controlled, especially with his emotions, but to know that he’d gone as far as to hurt himself makes Arthur feel guilty and slightly horrified. Whether it was physically or emotionally, he wasn’t sure, because Ariadne hadn’t specified, but something told him that it was probably both. Eames had definitely changed after Arthur turned him down, but to know that he had changed enough to do something that he wouldn’t have seen fit before didn’t settle well in his stomach. He could feel the thick waves of guilt in his stomach making him sick.

 

“Oh,” he mumbles intelligently, before really looking at her. It took his mind off of thinking about how much he had actually hurt Eames, and it gave him an excuse to not think about anything else.

 

It had been only a week and a few days since she had been in the hospital, in a bed, just like Arthur was. Ariadne had always been a quick recoverer when it came to anything like the flu or someone insulting her. He wasn’t surprised that it had carried on into this. She looked good; Arthur had always found his childhood best friend to be beautiful, but she hadn’t ever looked like this. She was jaded, a piece of the child that she used to be, but somehow she was a whole different whole (a whole different whole?). He would be lying if he said he hadn’t been more than a little jealous.

 

“I’m worried about you, Arthur,” she whispers after a few moments of awkward, pained silence, and he looks over at her, breaking out of his reverie.

 

“You shouldn’t be. I’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks time, and then we’ll be able to do things together again.” Though he know it’s not about his surgery, he’ll find any excuse to not talk about it.

 

And because for some reason, unfathomable to him, probably because of what he had done to Eames -- this was obviously a higher power’s way of shoving all of his shit back in his face --, Ariadne was gifted in being extremely observational, and willingly knew just about everything when it came to her. “That’s not what I meant, Arthur, and you know it,” she snaps.

 

“I’m fine, Ariadne.”

 

“No, you’re not. You convince yourself you’re okay and you live with this guilt that no one should live with. You need to man up and apologize to him, you know. I know you meant well as a child, I know you didn’t know what you were doing, but Eames... well.. just imagine if Eames had done the same to you. Then how would you feel?”

 

And then she’s gone, like she was never even there, and Arthur’s still not positive if she was just a figment of his imagination or not, yet. Arthur wouldn’t have put it past himself to hallucinate this whole conversation and situation up himself.

 

Then, he really, really thought about what she said, and his heart clenched in the most painful way in his chest. He wouldn’t be able to just simply ignore it and pretend it’s not there, because it’d be unbearable. The thought of having their positions flipped, if it had been Eames that had left him, well, he probably would’ve done something very rash that he would’ve regretted.

 

He’d never put himself in Eames‘ place before, thinking about what would happen if Eames had left him, probably from too much pride and not enough motive behind it.

 

Arthur was pretty good at lying to himself, but for the first time that he could remember he wanted to change that.

 

*

 

 

Arthur and Eames had tried to have sex twice. One time it had happened, and the other time it hadn’t. The first hadn’t ended up so well.

 

It began like this:

 

Eames was turning seventeen soon, and Arthur wanted to do something special for him, something that he would remember. They hadn’t told anyone what they were doing, though Ariadne had suspected and told him ‘You guys would be voted for Cutest Couple if we were normal’. He wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a bad thing, but he knew that the ‘if we were normal’ tagged along with it gave him an eerie feeling.

 

Arthur spent all day trying to get things prepared -- though nothing like this ever worked out if you planned it. Arthur was young and naive back then, though he still was now, being someone who hadn’t had sex besides that time with Eames. It was his fondest memory. There wasn’t much time, or rather, it was frowned upon because of the chance of pregnancy (luckily Eames and Arthur didn’t have to worry about that one). Sex, in their line of work, was difficult and sticky, something that could result in ended up messy, though many donors and carers found time to do it.

 

After spending all day trying to plan for this, they’d sat down in a patch of the woods that no one knew about but them and talked, talked, talked. When they got tired of talking they kissed, chaste and shy, romantic at first as it gradually grew to something more.

 

It ended with them being completely naked on the forest floor, leaves tickling Arthur’s belly as Eames tried to push into him, intoxicated with need and arousal. They’d forgotten a condom and lube, things they didn’t know they’d need, and it wasn’t glorious or beautiful, or anything that Arthur expected.

 

It was gross and uncomfortable, from the forest ground and the leaves poking Arthur’s belly, from the feel of the head of Eames’ cock trying to push it’s way into a place that it couldn’t get into, and because the whole thing that Arthur had planned had shattered beneath his fingertips.

 

When they realized that it wasn’t going to happen, Eames turned him over and kissed him in a way that scared him to death; it was romantic, sweet and loving.

 

Eames walked away from it like it was nothing, insisting that it was the best birthday he ever had, but he knew that he was just as upset as he was.

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur didn’t apologize the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. He waited, waited, waited until the opportunity was absolutely perfect.

 

It came two days after the fourth day of waiting.

 

 

*

 

They were finally alone. Mal had been hanging around more than usual, probably because Eames was still very much upset about Arthur being a dick, not that Arthur didn’t blame him. And Dom had been hanging around for the sake of Arthur’s sanity and because Mal probably asked him to. But they had muttered something about going to dinner in the valley before going back and watching a movie, or something close to that.

 

Arthur knew they just wanted some time alone. Mal was going to be preparing for her first donation after Eames and they knew that they wouldn’t be able to do as many ‘activities’ together.

 

They just wanted to fuck, but were much too bashful to admit it -- though Arthur was almost positive she had muttered something about it in French toward Eames. He wasn’t going to look into it, particularly because he didn’t want to be enlightened about the lack of his sex life. Arthur wasn’t the type to live vicariously through others.

 

“Eames?” He whispers into the night, knowing he probably won’t get an answer, but tries anyway, because Arthur’s kind of always been a sadistic, yet hopeful, son of a bitch.

 

He doesn’t get a reply for a while, but he’s not particularly sad about it, only a little let down. He wasn’t expecting one anyway so he wasn’t going to beat himself up about it, or at least, he wasn’t going to try to.

 

He had lost Eames once, he could lose him again. Maybe.

 

“Arthur,” comes a voice and Arthur nearly shits himself, because he had forgotten that he had said something. He could’ve sworn that someone had snuck in for a moment but it was just Eames, and that was much, much better.

 

He glances over in the general direction where Eames’ bed is. Even though he couldn’t see him in the dark, it comforted him to know that he was actually there.

 

“I wanted to talk to you.”

 

He could imagine Eames purse his lips in thought like he always did. “Arthur.”

 

He takes that as a cue to continue, “I wanted to say that I was sorry.”

 

“For what?” Though they both knew, Eames was just buttering it up, laying it on thick, as thick as he could.

 

“For everything.”

 

“I’ve known you were sorry for a long time,” Eames says, not in a malicious or upset tone, but in a way that Arthur couldn’t describe, even though it made his stomach rumble in the way that it always did around him.

 

“I figured,” Arthur pauses, for a moment, barely missing a beat. “But you deserve to hear me say it.”

 

Eames laughs, he actually laughs, and he hadn’t heard that sound in so long that he couldn’t help but manage a small smile. He had been waiting to hear it for forever. “If you’re searching for forgiveness, Arthur,” Eames trails off.

 

Arthur waits.

 

Silence.

 

He was obviously playing games with him, toying with him, making him want it, making him thirst for it, and Arthur would’ve considered him a bastard if he hadn’t known that he deserved it.

 

“I forgave you a long time ago,” Eames finishes.

 

Arthur couldn’t stop the broad grin that spread across his cheeks even if he tried, and he didn’t try. He was happy and even if Eames hadn’t declared his love for him (yet), it was still gratifying.

 

He really was something else.

 

 

*

 

 

The next few days flew by, it was everything that Arthur had wanted, but hadn’t known that he particularly needed. They had gotten closer, they had forced their beds together so they could talk to each other without yelling across the room at night; both of them had insomnia as an after effect of the surgeries and took the responsibility of entertaining one another.

 

Eames told Arthur about his times as a carer, how he and Yusuf had bonded over chocolate chip cookies, old chemistry books and The Wizard of Oz (which was admittedly both of their favorite movies). He told him about how he hadn’t been anywhere but the Villages and the apartment complex that he was assigned to because of the fear of running into his originals, even though they were most likely dead by now. He told Arthur everything he had missed, to the point that Arthur thought he was actually there.

 

Arthur never felt more included, more loved, more home.

 

The thought scared him and made him feel mushy inside all of the same.

 

Each moment that Arthur and Eames had spent together, Arthur had fallen more in love. He had realized what he had been pushing away, what he’d been missing, and now he wasn’t sure if Eames would ever look at him like that.

 

He didn’t know if Eames still loved him, or remotely even liked him. For all the fuck he knew, Eames could’ve been only putting up with him because he didn’t want to be alone when Mal wasn’t around. He didn’t know, but he had to try. He had to try because their time was running out and he didn’t want to screw this up like last time.

 

Eames was the only one that he could picture himself being comfortable enough with; he was the one that made Arthur feel the most at ease (something that was hard these days).

 

He made Arthur feel like he mattered, so he had to try, because he knew that they were good together and that they’d make something tragic into something beautiful.

 

 

*

 

 

“You like him,” Mal says to Eames, and it’s weird that she’s here at night but Arthur’s too tired to even begin to question that.

 

“I do,” Eames replies. “But I don’t... I don’t think... I can’t-”

 

Arthur pictures Mal shaking her head. “No,” Mal says incredulously, and he imagines that she’s stroking Eames’ hair now. “What’re you so afraid of?”

 

“He broke me once, he can do it again.” Arthur tries his hardest not to wince because he was supposed to be ‘sleeping’ and if they found out he was awake, well, that just wouldn’t be good.

 

“You mustn’t be afraid, darling.”

 

“He wasn’t ready for it nine years ago, there’s no reason that he’d be ready for it now.”

 

He could hear Mal sigh and he knew she was probably shooting him an annoyed look. “You don’t see the way he looks at you.”

 

“He doesn’t look at me any differently than he does you.”

 

“He does look at you differently. Non, ne regrette rein.” She whispers in French, and his French is shaky so he doesn’t completely understand. “Ne vivent pas dans le pas, prende une chance, nous n’avons pas de temps.”

 

Arthur’s positive that she knows that he’s awake.

 

Eames sighs. “I don’t think I could ever trust him again.”

 

“Try. It’s horrible watching you two dance around each other like this, especially when both Dom and I can tell that you’re crazy about each other. That you’ve always been crazy. Not about each other, just in general. Both of you,” she whispers, her voice as fond as it could possibly be, and Arthur wonders why she’s buttering it up like this for Eames. Why she’s saying all of the right things, everything that Arthur had wanted to tell Eames. Maybe it was because she was tired of seeing one of her best friends hurting, or maybe it was because the French beauty was more observant than he previously though.

 

“Prende a’l’automne.”

 

And that’s the last thing he hears before the black abyss welcomes him home again.

 

 

*

 

11 Years Earlier

 

When Eames had left, Arthur was a wreck. Ariadne had an eye on him constantly, making sure that he hadn’t done anything rash. More often than not, for the kids that were involved, when one of them left, they’d act out in fits of violence upon themselves and other students. But Arthur had never been the violent type, and simply kept to himself, not saying anything, but hoping, hoping, hoping, that this was just a dream. That Eames was still here, and wasn’t two hours away in a place where Arthur hadn’t yet known.

 

Nothing comforted him, though; he was just a destructive mess of anxiety, depression and anger. Anger at himself for letting Eames go so easily and angry at the place that took him away from him. He was going to sulk; he was going to sulk until he couldn’t sulk anymore. He was going to cry, cry, cry until he had no tears left.

 

He had no shame, right now, because the one person who he thought would never leave ended up leaving and Arthur knew that two years wasn’t a long time, but a lot could happen in an hour.

 

Exactly how much could happen in two years? In approximately 17, 531 hours, everything or nothing could change and Arthur hoped for the latter but knew the former was more likely happen.

 

“Arthur?” Tyre whispered, walking to the foot of Arthur’s bed.

 

“What?”

 

“Miss McWatson would like to speak to you.”

 

Arthur let out a string of ‘fucks’ and ‘oh shits’ escape his lips, not loud enough for the younger child to hear. Miss McWatson was the headmaster, and if you were ever called to her office, well, basically you were fucked.

 

Arthur had been fucked, once, and it was pleasant. He was sure this wasn’t going to be one of those ‘pleasant fucks’. He pushed himself off of the bed and pulled on his socks, throwing on the pair of shoes that he had been given once his feet had grown. He did both with grave measure, trying to prolong the visit and trek to her office.

 

“Thanks,” he had said, and then gave a button to the younger child, almost dimpling when he got a grin in return before he ran off and then walked to her office.

 

And when he finally was outside her office, Arthur felt his anxiety reach an all new high and he couldn’t even begin to control the bout of emotions that were swelling inside his stomach. Arthur had been perfect while he was here, or at least, he had tried. He barely got yelled at by the caretakers, he made sure to take time out of his day -- well, when Eames was here -- to actually converse with most of the other children and teenagers staying here. He couldn’t think of a reason as to why he was getting called, and tried not to think of it too much. He was positive he wasn’t more than a few steps away from passing out and that just wasn’t good.

 

He didn’t want to cause a ruckus, even though one was probably already started.

 

He sat himself in one of the chairs outside her door, and busied himself with straightening out his already perfectly straight tie, biting his finger nails in between the brushings, looking nervously at the other children that were playing on the bottom level in the recreation room.

 

“Arthur,” Miss McWatson’s voice broke him out of his near nervous breakdown and he snapped his head to look at her, nerves basically eating a hole in his chest.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’ll see you now,” she says, cold, bitter, and even somewhat resentfully.

 

Arthur hadn’t realized he’d done something that bad. But upon better thought, she’d always been this anal, and Arthur had to laugh at the fact that if Eames had been siting here beside him, he’d probably mutter something like ‘bugger, why the hell hasn’t she gotten the stick out of her arse yet?’ before throwing an amused glance his way.

 

Thinking about Eames made his day just as much as it wrecked it.

 

“Sit down, Arthur,” she said, sitting behind her desk and Arthur nervously sat down in the chair in front of her, back painfully straight, legs crossed and his hands folded into his lap.

 

“It’s come to my attention that you’ve been doing some... acts around the grounds that aren’t typically accepted,” she said, and he could practically drown in the judgment that was dripping from her voice.

 

Arthur tumbles through the possible ‘acts’ that he could’ve been doing around the grounds that weren’t ‘typically accepted’ and came up with nothing besides the ‘al natural cigarettes that Eames had tried to make. Eames had seen them from a movie they’d shown during one of the free Fridays. “Miss McWatson, I don’t see how that’s possible being as we hid the bu-”

 

“I don’t want to know where your butt has been, Arthur, though I’ve got an idea of where,” she snapped, and Arthur felt himself sink deeper into the seat.

 

“My butt hasn’t been anywhere it shouldn’t be.”

 

“Oh?” She had inquired, quirking a malicious eyebrow as she looked at him with challenging eyes, like this was a game to her.

 

“You know I’ve been nothing but good since I’ve gotten here when I was a baby.”

 

She pursed her lips. “That had been true up until a few years ago,” she said vaguely, and curse adults for thinking that Arthur couldn’t understand because he was a damned teenager. Arthur was smarter than most, and this ‘headmaster’ knew that better than anyone and it annoyed him that she refused to elaborate.

 

“How?” He asked, because he honestly didn’t know why he was even here.

 

“Eames.”

 

He blinked. “What about him?”

 

“That’s what’s been dragging you down, Arthur. That’s why you’ve been called here. The other staff and I have noticed something between you guys that we’re not particularly happy about.”

 

“Miss, with all due respect, it’s not what it looks like,” Arthur had said, choosing his words wisely because he very much could’ve given them away while trying to protect them. “It’s not what you think it is. Eames is my best friend, we understand each other, and we’re close.”

 

“Well,” she paused, taking an extra long glance at him before she spoke again. “I’d say that it’s definitely a changed term since I was a kid. I’ve never known friends who kiss each other.”

 

“He’s English, he kisses everyone’s cheek,” Arthur said lamely. He knew it was lame, he knew it was, but he had to get himself out of the water that he was drowning in.

 

“I’m guessing because he’s ‘English’ that he kisses everyone on the lips too, hm?” Her tone was apprehensive, and if Arthur had seen it fit to hit a woman, he probably would’ve done it. But he had morals to respect and uphold and he wasn’t about to take it out on a woman who didn’t understand why he was the way he was.

 

Why he liked Eames they way he liked him.

 

“He’s kissed Ariadne before, on the lips.”

 

“That’s because he was playing a game, Arthur. I’m pretty sure the kiss that I saw, that the other staff have seen on occasion, different occasions, mind you, weren’t because of a game.”

 

“I don’t understand where there’s a problem. Other kids here get to kiss their boyfriends and girlfriends, I don’t understand what’s so different about us.”

 

She slams a book down on the table, annoyed, probably, because of Arthur not seeing what she was trying to say. “It’s not right for two teenaged boys to be kissing on my property and I’ll be a dammed fool if I’m going to allow it any longer.”

 

Arthur had to grin a little, spite that bitch, because he’d fucked a teenage boy on her property and he almost said as much just to anger her.

 

“Eames isn’t here anymore. So I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,” Arthur said smugly, coolly, putting up a front because his heart was beating way too fast in his chest and he didn’t want to look like a fool who would be scared of her.

 

Even though he was.

 

“I know he’s not, Arthur,” she said, like she was speaking to a young child. “But the thing is that you could go around and start it all over again.”

 

He levels a glare at her face, and feels proud of himself for not lowering it. “I’m not one to go fuck around, Miss McWatson.”

 

She levels out his glare, and then turns to the window, pointing to the other kids playing out in the courtyard. “How do you think they’ll feel if they found out about your little secret?” She asks.

 

“I don’t care what they think.”

 

“You will if they throw a punch, or a kick, or maybe even a rock.”

 

“You wouldn’t let that happen.”

 

She turned to look at him. “I wouldn’t, but it could happen when I’m not there, Arthur. This is what you have to understand. People don’t take well to what you and Eames have chosen to partake in. In fact, most people hate it, will act out violently. You’re a bright, smart kid, Arthur, and I’d hate to see these other kids swallow you up because of something as mild and stupid as this.”

 

Arthur got angry, because he was young and intolerable and he couldn’t stop the wave of anger that suddenly flooded his body. “What Eames and I have isn’t ‘mild’ or ‘stupid’. It’s just as real, if not more real, than all of the other couples here.”

 

“I’m merely talking about what would happen if other kids found out about what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

 

“Eames isn’t here anymore, so it’s not like they’d ever find out,” Arthur said.

 

She rose an eyebrow. “You’re sure of that?” Arthur nodded, and then she let out a laugh, one that wasn’t filled with humor, but exasperation. “Rumors spread faster around these grounds than any other I’ve ever been on, Arthur. Most of the kids your age already are suspecting something and it wont take long for the whole campus to suspect.”

 

“I’m not going to suddenly announce that Eames and I aren’t involved when we are.”

 

“I just want you to think about what you’re getting yourself into, Arthur. You’re someone that deserves to be happy while you’re on this earth, and I don’t want other people to tear that down for you.”

 

“They won’t if I don’t let them,” Arthur said, and then looked out on the grounds again. “Can I leave now?”

 

She shakes her head, sitting on the edge of her desk, and met his eyes. “I guess I’m going to have to go about this the hard way then, Arthur.”

 

“What?” He asked, confused, his eyebrow knitting.

 

“You’re not to see Eames anymore.”

 

Arthur shook his head, and probably balled his fists up too, hell, he might’ve even spit a couple of times. “You can’t ask me to do that.”

 

“I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m telling you what you’re going to do. In two years, when you see him, you’re not to partake in whatever you’ve been partaking in for the last couple of years. When you see him, you’re not to touch him. I’ll be able to tell, too, Arthur, I’ll be able to know and then you’ll be in trouble.”

 

“You think you can control me,” Arthur had said, not as a question, because it was a fact; it was the truth. Arthur had no control. The control he thought he had wasn’t something that was even remotely close to resembling as much. He was just a robot. A robot that was being controlled like this, having his path in life laid out for him.

 

“It’s not about control, it’s about balance.”

 

“There’s no balance if I can’t be with Eames,” Arthur knew he was close to being on his knees, but nothing like that had mattered at the time. The only thing that mattered was Eames, and Eames was something that was about to be ripped from under his fingers more so than before.

 

“If you so much as talk to him, say more words to him than saying you’re ending things with him, you’ll be.. well, you’ll be sorry you did.”

 

Arthur narrowed his eyes, adrenaline and anger still floating thickly through his veins. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

 

“You stay here with us will be reconsidered and other measures might have to be taken to make sure that something like this never happens again,” she said, in a tone of voice that Arthur couldn’t go up against, that he couldn’t defend.

 

He felt like his whole world had crashed and that his heart was being ripped out, and he hadn’t even told Eames yet.

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur and Eames had finally been able to have sex the week before Eames had left for the villages. It wasn’t planned or thought out. It happened deep, tucked away beneath the canopy of the trees and it was every bit beautiful as it was painful.

 

Eames had been nothing but gentle, constantly asking ‘are you okay?’ and ‘do you really want to do this? we have the rest of forever’, but Arthur knew that they didn’t have forever. They didn’t have a lot of time left, and he was almost positive that Eames was only being a gentleman for Arthur’s sake.

 

He gently had whispered. “Just take me, Eames,” at which Eames had; he had pushed, tugged and gave until he couldn’t anymore. The moonlight set the mood as the leaves bristled against Arthur’s stomach just like last time, but it wasn’t painful and it wasn’t annoying. It was comforting because they were there, reminding Arthur that he very much was as well.

 

It had hurt at first, and he almost wasn’t able to take it, but this was Eames, and Arthur had always promised himself that he would take whatever he was willing to give. And if this was what he chose, then this was what it was.

 

And Arthur honestly didn’t want anything more.

 

 

*

 

 

“Fuck,” Arthur thinks to himself, or at least he hopes, because that would be slightly unnerving. He wouldn’t sweat it too much, it was only Eames, and while Eames was everything that was impossibly intimidating in the world, he wasn’t trying to worry too much.

 

“Mm, that sounds nice.” Arthur freezes. So he did say that out loud. And while he was almost positive that Eames was sleeping or at least half asleep, Arthur felt that nervous wave in his stomach again, brewing deep, doing all sorts of things to his insides -- which he had grown accustomed to.

 

Arthur doesn’t say anything. Eames isn’t even remotely conscious and he tells himself that going over there and pouncing on him would not only be incredibly painful for the both of them, but Eames would probably drop kick him.

Arthur really, really didn’t want that.

Maybe if he tells himself enough, maybe he could finally believe that.

*

He’s sitting in the recreation room, enjoying some actual food (finally. He swore he was going to go completely and totally off kilter if he didn’t get some real food in him; not that packaged, fake ass shit that they seemed to love to feed the patients here) when he sees Eames tumble in. Part of him wants to go over and help him, because it’s obvious that it hurts to walk, but it hurts Arthur just as much, and he’s always been a selfish always-think-about-yourself-when-you’re-in-pain kind of bastard.

 

Plus, Eames probably doesn’t want his help. He was stubborn as Arthur was, and he wouldn’t let anyone help him with anything.

 

And then it’s Eames walking towards him that makes him realize that this is what he wants; he wants to see this man for breakfast and then tuck him in bed at night. He wants to be able to wake up in the morning with a million and one kisses pressed to his lips from that very man, the one that was stepping toward him now. He wanted every impossible thing with him, but he also wanted nothing, because nothing else mattered if he had Eames.

 

He’d spend forever doing nothing with Eames and he would be happier than if he spent his whole life doing everything with someone else.

 

The thought scared him and made him all fuzzy all the same; he was pretty sure that latter was winning at this point, but he was too hazy to really even particularly care.

 

“Darling,” Eames says in greeting, putting his plate down on the table next to Arthur, and Arthur thinks he feels his heart beat a little erratically at that. It had been forever since he heard ‘darling’ and he never thought that he’d hear it like this again.

 

Arthur smiles; he smiles so wide that it touches his eyes, and he doesn’t even bother to hide it, because now Eames was talking to him again, something that he thought would never happen again. But it was.

 

“Eames,” he greets, shoving a pancake in his mouth, and doesn’t care when some of it falls back onto his plate. As incredibly detestable as the picture might’ve been, Eames smiles back at him.

 

He thinks he might be a little bit disgustingly infatuated by this man, or maybe it’s a lot more than a little. Arthur didn’t care because everything wasn’t as important as it used to be; Eames was now here.

 

They didn’t have to say anything. Arthur wasn’t sure that he wanted them to, either. But even comfortable silence got to be too much sometimes.

 

“You seem to be in a better mood today,” Arthur comments, knowing that over the past couple of days Eames has been incredibly down; most likely because of the head cold that he caught.

 

He earns an amused grin in return. Arthur’s never felt happier. “Mm, I think these wonderful pancakes have something to do with that, actually.”

 

“It’s much better than that packaged shit they’ve been feeding us.”

 

“That stuff was horrid,” Eames says, shoving some sausage in his mouth, and that really, really shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was. Arthur was only human.

 

A male human, and just about everything was attractive about Eames, in his defense.

 

Arthur looks up at Eames, and really looks at him, taking the time to take in how different Eames looked from when they were teenagers. He changed from back then, but that’s to be expected, though it wasn’t in the way that one would’ve hoped for or expected. His face was more narrow and sunken in -- a sight that Arthur didn’t enjoy too well -- and he looked like he had never slept. But he’s been sleeping regularly since Arthur started rooming with him.

 

He was beautiful. Not in the same way that he was when they were younger, but now in a tragic way, like it wasn’t fair that someone so ridiculously charming and beautiful could die so soon. His beauty wasn’t fading like their lives were. Instead, it was growing into something that Arthur couldn’t explain but appreciated all the same.

 

They spent that day doing absolutely nothing but just being in each other’s company, talking a little, but not a lot, and Arthur supposed that was the best day that they ever had.

 

*

 

And then it’s time to leave and Arthur doesn’t want to go because it’s Eames and Eames is everything he’s ever wanted but hadn’t known that he needed. He was everything that he needed when he was at his darkest, and he was pretty sure that this was it, even when he felt like he was happy now. It all faded into absolutely nothing, in the big spectrum of things, because though he could always remember him, he couldn’t actually see him. And that struck a place in his chest that he hadn’t known existed.

Eventually, he knew that the high would fade when he was away from the man that had ended up meaning everything to him, and soon he wouldn’t be feeling how he was now. He tried not to think about it too much, though the attempts were feeble; he was an over-thinker so it wasn’t something that was avoidable.

He wasn’t looking forward to leaving the one man that hadn’t shut him out but who he’d shut out instead, but it was going to happen, whether he wanted it to or not.

Miraculously, Eames forgave him for that, a little too late, but entirely so soon that he hadn’t expected it, or deserved it even. Arthur wasn’t about to complain or say that he didn’t appreciate it, because these last few weeks had been the best he’s ever experienced since leaving the home of his childhood.

But then, Eames was by his side, taking his hand and kissing it softly in a way that he hadn’t touched Arthur before. It was intimate and sweet, everything that he hadn’t known he was capable of. And Arthur turned to look at him, because how could he not?

He wasn’t expecting for their lips to meet in a kiss, and it took him a few moments before he regained proper use of his brain, his mind screaming ‘he’s kissing you, asshole, kiss him back’ as he fumbled to remember how to actually kiss someone. The kiss was soft, chaste and romantic; he hadn’t wanted it to be rough. This meant much more and Arthur was sure that they couldn’t have handled it anyways; they were both still pretty weak. Eames’ tongue eventually pressed against the front of his lips, begging, hoping. Arthur would’ve been a fool too turn him down, and he really didn’t want to.

Arthur opened up for him and kissed him like he hadn’t ever kissed anyone before and it was beautiful as it was sad, because Arthur was pretty sure that this was the last kiss they’d ever have. It made him feel a tightening in his chest that he never wanted to feel again. So he kissed, kissed, kissed. He kissed until his lips were swollen and until he could barely breathe because as much as he wanted to get out of this stuffy hospital room, he didn’t want to leave Eames. He wanted this to last as long as it possibly could, so he kept kissing, kissing, kissing.

When they pulled away, Eames pulled their foreheads together, standing with bags surrounding their feet as they kissed in the middle of their hospital room. It couldn’t have been more perfect and Arthur felt his heart burst at the thought of knowing that it had actually happened, that Eames had been the one to kiss him, and not the other way around.

Maybe this was Eames’ way of saying he wanted to give Arthur another chance, or maybe this was just a ‘hey-i’m-lonely-and-you’re-there’ kind of thing and this would all just tumble over into nothing.

But then Eames was stroking Arthur’s cheek, and smiling at him all wide in a way that he hadn’t seen for years and he felt so happy that he could barely fathom how much his face was hurting from smiling so much. He caught Arthur’s gaze, and held it, not looking away, and it was the most intimate thing that he had ever experienced

“Come home with me,” he whispers, a certain level of hope bleeding through his voice that he didn’t bother containing. Normally, Arthur would say no, because this isn’t the type of thing he does, but this is someone entirely different than the regular person and he wasn’t about to say no to him. Arthur wasn’t exactly sure what ‘come home with me’ meant exactly, but he hoped it had meant what he thought it did. Even though he wasn’t entirely sure if he exactly deserved to have Eames in the way that he wanted, he would take, take, take until he couldn’t anymore. He would take and give anything that Eames would give him, no matter what the cost was.

So he nods, and then kisses Eames’ lips, and he thinks he whispers something like ‘of course’, but he wasn’t exactly sure because his lips were otherwise occupied before he could really think about saying something to what he had offered.

Eames grins so wide that it almost doesn’t fit his face, but he’s beautiful in a way that Arthur had never seen before. So it’s beautiful even though it’s not supposed to be, and then they leave.

He’d never been more filled with hope before, hope at the prospect of a new life, a new life with Eames, the one man that had absolutely changed his life in a way that Arthur was thankful for. He was filled with hope at the idea of being with Eames for longer than what he previously thought, and he was filled with hope because maybe, just maybe, this meant that Eames wanted what Arthur wanted. That he wanted to wake up and go to sleep next to him everyday. That he wanted to be with him at his most private and intimate moments. That they wanted to start and end this together because in a world where they really had control over nothing, this relationship, this love, was really the only thing that was what they had wanted.

What he wanted.

And they had control over all of it.

*

Arthur may not have a lot of time left, and he might not get his happy ending with a picket fence and a white house, but Eames was enough. And a home was something he never really had, but what he always needed and it never used to be enough for Arthur. But that was changed now; it was changed, and as long as Eames was there beside him until he couldn't be, Arthur was happy.

Eames was home.

*

Arthur would never be a doctor. He would never run a marathon, he would never have kids, or get married or even get divorced. Arthur would never go home and visit the parents that never wanted him or for them to have a heartwarming dinner. Arthur would never win an award for being an actor, and he would never be able to say that he went to an actual school. He would never have kissed a girl, or see a baby for the first time. He would never, ever get to travel the world and stumble at its greatness. He would never get to run, and be free out in the world because of the chances he has of hurting himself or something encased in his skin. Arthur would never be able to move houses or go to a zoo. Arthur would never be able to enjoy a cigarette, drink until he couldn't see, or shoot himself up with something dangerous.

Arthur would never be able to experience those things that normal people get to experience, and Arthur didn't mind as much as he thought he would. Eames was all of those things in one.

Eames was freedom.

And Arthur was finally free.

 _fin._

**Author's Note:**

> This basically took my soul out of me when I wrote this. I'm very proud of it though, and I love it a lot. I might write a follow-up on this, but I'm not sure yet. All things considered, I hope you enjoy this!


End file.
